He gripped her hips and ground her core against his throbbing erection, setting a frenzied pace, driving them both to the edge of madness. Want what’s mine...need...now. On their date, she’d been the one to speed things up, and he’d been the one to slow everything down. Now, this moment, he couldn’t move fast enough.

More! Give me!

“Feels so good, pekný.” She took him by the wrists and moved his hands to the arms of the chair. A recliner. “But today there’s no reason to hurry.” She bit his lower lip, drawing it through her teeth. With another push, she changed the angle of his body, forcing him to lie back. Then, oh then, she began to rub against him of her own accord, slow, so agonizingly slow. “You can enjoy me while you’ve got me.”

Another reference to her departure. He squeezed the arms of the chair and the wood cracked. “You need me,” he reminded her. “And not just for this.”

“I don’t.”

He offered no other rebuke, his every nerve ending electrified, his desire for her only escalating. Instead, he lunged forward and sank his teeth in the cord that stretched from her neck to shoulder. Finally leaving his mark.

She shuddered against him, gasping his name with breathless wonder. Then she rotated her hips, gradually increasing the pressure. Press...retreat...press...retreat. Agonizing him.

“Do you like this?”

“Love...it.” As his inhalations quickened, he stared up at her face, enraptured. Her features were luminous, her eyelids heavy, her lips soft and pink, slightly swollen from his kisses. A flush brightened her cheeks, and her dark curls tumbled past her shoulders in well-loved tangles.

He reached up and fisted the strands. “Let me keep and protect you until Hades’s war is over.”

She stilled, her nails digging into his shoulders. “You keep reminding me how weak I am.”

“Because you need me.” Within a few short seconds, the lack of pressure and movement proved excruciating. Sweat beaded on his brow. “I’m strong.”

“You’re also stubborn. But how about this, hmm? I’ll let you pleasure me, and I might even stick around for a while, but you’ll keep your thoughts on strength and weakness to yourself.” She teased him with a featherlight stroke, her core brushing his erection. “Say yes, and we’ll get back to business. I’m wet. Shall I prove it?”

“Yes. Yes!”

She stood and pulled her dress over her head. Her bra and panties were blue—and the panties had a definite wet spot in the center. He groaned as he drank in the rest of her. Drank his fill. The long, endless legs so wonderfully dark, her injury hidden by a bandage. The flare of her hips created a heart. The indention of her stomach...the lacy bra couldn’t shield the crest of her nipples.

She was purely female, and he wanted her all over him.

He crooked his finger at her. “Return to me.”

“How about another bargain?” She placed a knee on each side of him, goose bumps erupting over her flesh. “I’ll stay right here...if you’ll put your fingers inside me.”

Agonizing? No longer. She—was—killing—him. A definite threat to his survival, but he was certain he and Destruction would go with a smile.

The urge to rip his gloves off with his teeth bombarded him. He would slay an entire army for the chance to feel her silken heat. But he couldn’t risk it. This was only his second encounter with pleasure in centuries. If he spoiled it with a flood of unnecessary pain...

“I agree to your terms.” A sense of urgency drove him as he tunneled his fingers under her panties. Even with the leather he could feel her slickness—she was soaked—and the sweet burn of her feminine heat. He thrust a single digit in, going deep, her inner walls clamping on him.

Moaning, she plumped her breasts and pinched her nipples. For his enjoyment, and her own. Such an uninhibited reaction delighted him.

Slowly, he fed her a second finger, stretching her. So tight! So perfect.

She groaned a sound of desperate hunger. “Feels good.”

Good. Yes. But they could do better. “Ride my fingers.” His jaw was clenched so firmly he almost couldn’t get the words out. Somehow, she’d completely stripped him of his humanity, turning him into an animal with only one goal: climax.

Or a beast.

“Like this?” Up she rose...down she slid. “Mmm, I hope so. That’s amazing.”

“Yes, just like that.” He used his thumb to circle the heart of her. “You’re squeezing me, scalding me.” Ruining me for anyone else.